Third Time’s as Charming as Ever

Most of you know already know how I feel about the magnificent revival of Blithe Spirit, so I’ll keep this one brief. I had the unexpected pleasure of going back to see the show a third time this evening. Even though I saw it a mere two weeks ago, it’s still hilarious and doesn’t lose any of its magic on return visits. The house was mostly full with an eager and appreciative crowd. Personal favorite Jayne Atkinson got entrance applause at the very top of the play and we were off. The pacing and performances are tighter and funnier; Blithe Spirit is the Dom Perignon of this season’s revivals.

The cast is uniformly excellent; I’m even warming up to Ebersole’s rather kooky interpretation of Elvira. Everett postures but is still good with a droll line reading. Simon Jones and Deborah Rush make great impressions in their limited stage time. The aforementioned Atkinson should be featured in a show every season, as far as this humble fan is concerned. And of course, Angela Lansbury continues to be the Belle of the Ball as Madame Arcati, with an especially feisty performance tonight. Her relationship toward the Bradmans has grown consistently edgier and is all the more funnier for it.

The show is only running until July 19, so if you haven’t gone yet, get a move on!

Some Classics Not on DVD

Last night, I decided to pop in the recently reissued DVD of the 1961 classic Splendor in the Grass, which starred Oscar nominee Natalie Wood and the ever-bland Warren Beatty, in his film debut. This edition marked the second release of the film, as part of a new Natalie Wood boxed set (with titles also available individually). Then I remembered that another one of her classics had yet to be released on DVD which started the ball rolling on this entry. So starting with that film, I compiled a short list of some notable classic movies that are not on DVD. All but one have never been available on Region 1 DVD.

Love with the Proper Stranger. This 1963 romantic comedy drama rather charmingly tells the story of a one-night stand that leads to pregnancy. Natalie Wood, in another Oscar nominated performance is the girl from a strict Italian Catholic family who finds herself in the family way, with Steve McQueen as her suitor. Daring for its time in its depiction of pre-Roe v. Wade abortions, the film finds a suitable balance between the funny and the poignant. Tom Bosley is incredibly endearing in his film debut.

The African Queen. One of the most famous action adventure films of all time, for some reason John Huston’s classic (from the novel by C.S. Forester) about a boorish boatman and upright missionary drifting downstream in the Congo has never been released on DVD in Region 1. Humphrey Bogart won his only Academy for his performance as Charley Allnut while Katharine Hepburn takes one of the many spinster roles that defined her film career in the 1950s. The film thrives on the personality clash of its stars and is aided by some lush Technicolor cinematography shot on location. Hepburn was given one minor piece of direction by Huston that completely helped her find her character: think Eleanor Roosevelt. She later claimed it to be “the best piece of direction I have ever heard.”

Dear Heart. This gentle romantic comedy is about the unexpected romance between maturing postmistress Geraldine Page and the uneasily betrothed Glenn Ford while Page is in NY for a convention. Shot on location in NY, it features some of the last footage of the old Penn Station before its upper level was demolished for the new Madison Square Garden. Angela Lansbury makes a spirited entrance in the film’s final act as Ford’s fiancee.

Wings. The first-ever Academy Award winner for Best Picture, this one’s about best friends (from opposite sides of the tracks) and World War I flying aces who find themselves competing for the affections of the same girl (Clara Bow). The film is especially notable for its air fight sequences, and also for being the only silent film to ever take top prize at the Oscars. Plus it’s got a young Gary Cooper in a supporting role. It’s one of two Best Picture winners not currently available on DVD. The other is the 1933 adaptation of Noel Coward’s Cavalcade.

Wuthering Heights. The 1939 adaptation of the Emily Bronte gothic novel was previously available from Samuel Goldwyn on VHS and DVD but has been long out of print. Directed by William Wyler, the film starred Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon as the passionate but star-crossed lovers in an adaptation that drives purists insane as it cuts the second half of the book (leaving out the entire parallel second generation). However, it remains a beautifully directed, shot and acted piece of film. And the only Best Picture nominee of that banner year of 1939 not on DVD at the present.

The Magnificent Ambersons. Orson Welles’ followup to Citizen Kane was to be even more ambitious: an epic adaptation of Booth Tarkington’s sprawling novel about the fall of a powerful Midwestern family. However, once Welles finished the film and left Hollywood, RKO took over preparations for the final cut. When it tested poorly, executives cut out 50 minutes and added an uplifting ending much to Welles’ displeasure. Still, the final film is incredibly well regarded in its 88 minute running time, with great performances from Joseph Cotten, Anne Baxter and an Oscar-nominated Agnes Moorehead.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This adaptation of Betty Smith’s classic bildungsroman (thank you, English degree!) about a young girl and her family growing up in Brooklyn at the turn of the 20th century is absolutely beautiful, with an Oscar-winning turn by James Dunn as the ne’er-do-well father. Dorothy Maguire is the long-suffering mother, Joan Blondell the lusty lovable Aunt Cissy and Peggy Ann Garner’s sensitive portrayal of Francie (along with appearances in Nob Hill and Junior Miss) garnered her the special Juvenile Oscar for outstanding child actress of 1945.

Hopefully these films, and others will eventually find their way onto DVD. Until then, we have to rely on TCM and other stations for showings. Warner Home Video recently started the Warner Archive, a DVD on demand catalogue with obscure classics never before released burned onto a DVD-R for $19.95. The archive releases contain a digital transfer of the current film elements (no restoring or remastering) and have no special features. (That’s how I got my copy of Sunrise at Campobello with Ralph Bellamy recreating his Tony-winning performance as FDR). Also, Turner Classic Movies keeps a list of the viewer poll’s top 200 classics not currently available.

Are there any personal favorites you would like to see released…?

Quote of the Day: Patti’s Encore

“When she returned for her encore, LuPone winked at the event and her reputation as the Terminator of poorly-behaved audience members. While she sang “The Way You Look Tonight,” she was snapping photos — with a flash! — using a disposable camera. The crowd waved and cheered and posed.”

Joe Brown, in the Las Vegas Sun on Patti LuPone’s performance of her solo show The Gypsy in My Soul, where an audience member got LuPwned for texting

Kennedy Center Tribute to Chita

For some inane reason or other I missed the Kennedy Center Honors in 2002, even though I knew Chita Rivera was on the dais. However, a good friend taped it for me just in case, so I had a save. (For you younger folk out there, this was before the youtube). About six weeks later, I was back from college in order to have my four wisdom teeth out.

After the surgery, I came home and waited for the painkillers to kick in (I was Violet Weston that weekend, kids…), I popped in this video to ease my discomfort as the novocaine wore off. That was a memorable morning kids, for various reasons (hear my brother tell the story of how I fell out of a chair).

In spite of the pain I was feeling, I picked myself off the couch and rewound the tape again and again. I still get chills seeing it.

Charlotte d’Amboise, Donna Murphy, Valerie Pettiford and countless dancers pay tribute to the Queen of the Gypsies.

Now this, Tony folks, is how you do a Broadway medley:

Guys and Dolls on the Tonys: 1992 vs. 2009

It’s been a week since the revival of Guys and Dolls closed at the Nederlander Theatre. The week prior, the cast performed the eleven o’clock number “Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat” on the Tony telecast, which is incidentally the same number performed by the company of the 1992 revival on their respective telecast. The hit 90s revival is still relatively fresh in the minds and hearts of many theatregoers, so perhaps it was a poor choice to use the same number for the Tony Awards. The difference in style, tone, energy, choreography is considerable. For instance, as General Cartwright, Ruth Williamson accomplishes more with a high C than Mary Testa with her entire spanking section.

1992:

2009:


Quote of the Day: Elizabeth Ashley

Elizabeth Ashley comments on playing opposite both Estelle Parsons and Phylicia Rashad in August: Osage County in an interview with Theatremania:

“They are both great actresses, no doubt about it. Estelle was dangerous and brutal; she was like an assassin laying in wait and you always saw her intelligence. Phylicia is different; with her Violet, you see the vulnerability, the loving mother, and the fall from grace when she is clutched by her demons. You see the entire spectrum of the woman. I’ve always believed that with brilliant writing there is no right way to play any part — although there are wrong ways — and actors with creative imagination, which is the greatest gift we have, can find their own way to serve the text.”

On playing Violet Weston:

I might give it a shot someday, but having worked with Estelle and Phylicia, even I might be cowed by the assignment.

One Performance Wonders on Record

A news item twittered via our good friend Steve alerted me to the fact that the failed musical Glory Days will be recording an original cast album. The show, an export of the Signature Theatre in Virginia, opened and closed on the same night in May 2008. Out of town reviews were encouraging (if constructive) and a transfer to NY, especially without any revision was a wholly haphazard thing to do. The original cast will reunite in a recording studio next month to lay down the tracks. Incidentally, Glory Days was the first musical to fold after one performance since the 1985 Goodspeed revival of Take Me Along at the Martin Beck.

It got me thinking about what other one performance wonders (as I like to call these fast flops) have received an Original Broadway Cast Album…

This is what I found:

Here’s Where I Belong – opened and closed at the Billy Rose Theatre on March 3, 1968. Ambitious musical adaptation of John Steinbeck’s allegorical masterpiece East of Eden was penned by Terrence McNally (who requested his name be removed prior to opening), with music by Robert Waldman and lyrics by Alfred Uhry. There was considerable reticence on my part to include this one here as the cast album on Blue Pear LP appears to be a glorified bootleg, however, I since there is an LP with artwork that was available, here it is.

The Utter Glory of Morrissey Hall – opened and closed at the Mark Hellinger Theatre on May 13, 1979. You may recall that I brought this one up to Marilyn Caskey at Angus McIndoe’s after the closing performance of Gypsy this past January. Written by Clark Gesner of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown fame, the show had a well received engagement in San Francisco in 1976 starring Jill Tanner as a British headmistress driven to insanity by the pranks of her students. Three years later, the show was revamped for its new star Celeste Holm, who was dreadfully miscast and out of her element (which can be evidenced on the record). The show stayed a week at the Hellinger, though it managed to get out an album and is licensed by Samuel French (I have the libretto!)

Onward Victoria – opened and closed at the Martin Beck Theatre on December 14, 1980. Larger than life historical figures have often made for interesting musicals. 1776, Gypsy, Fiorello!, among others come immediately to mind. However, this musical about Victoria Woodhull, a millionaire stockbroker turned suffragette presidential nominee didn’t quite live up to the standard. Starring Jill Eikenberry as Victoria, the show had music by Keith Hermann and book & lyrics by Charlotte Anker and Irene Rosenberg. Woodhull had long been considered for musical theatre, with proposed shows starring Lisa Kirk, Carol Channing and an out of town failure Winner Take All starring the sublime Patricia Morison.

Cleavage – opened and closed at the Playhouse Theatre on June 23, 1982. The show was a bawdy camp piece written for the Sheffield Theatre Ensemble that had a brief tour in the South before transferring to NY for its brief tenure. The score was by comedy writer Buddy Sheffield and the book was co-written by Sheffield and David Sheffield. It appears to have played successfully in New Orleans and it transferred to NY cast intact for literally a week. It featured such memorable moments as Jay Rogers in drag singing “Boys Will Be Girls”… it was that sort of show.

Dance a Little Closer – opened and closed at the Minskoff on May 11, 1983 and was jokingly referred to as Close a Little Faster by its detractors. The musical was an adaptation of Robert Sherwood’s Idiot’s Delight starring Len Cariou, George Rose, Liz Robertson and Brent Barrett with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Jule Styne. The creators updated the antiwar play by putting the characters at the brink of nuclear annihilation. The show’s cast album was recorded two weeks after the closing but was left unreleased until 1987.

Two other shows would receive later recordings. Kelly (February 6, 1965), quite possibly the most notorious of all the one-night stands, received ample coverage in Lewis Lapham’s legendary Saturday Evening Post article (and reprinted in Steven Suskin’s Second Act Trouble) got a studio cast album in 1998 restoring the composer and lyricist’s deluded intentions for the utterly misguided, misdirected and misproduced effort. Heathen! (May 21, 1972) resurfaced in New Zealand in 1981 under a new title Aloha! and that cast took the show into the recording studio.

And Then You’re Gone…And Then You’re Gone…


It was announced late this afternoon that the smash hit play August: Osage County will be closing on June 28 at the Music Box Theatre after 18 previews and 648 performances. The play won five Tonys including Best Play and the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Drama and is one of my most treasured theatrical experiences of all time.

The closing announcement comes as a bit of a surprise, especially since new star Phylicia Rashad has received so many raves for her performance as Violet. The play, which imported from Steppenwolf in fall 2007, was originally to be a sixteen week limited engagement at the Imperial Theatre, but proved to be such a huge success that it transferred next door to the Music Box for an open ended run in April ’08. For a three act play without any stars and a running time of three hours and twenty minutes, this run is quite a feat.

I’ve had a special affinity for the writing of Tracy Letts, the direction of Anna D. Shapiro and the acting of the ensemble, from Deanna Dunagan and Rondi Reed to Elizabeth Ashley and Rashad, all the while in utter awe of Amy Morton. It has been a show and a production that will stay with me always, with so many moments of sheer tragedy and sheer comedy forever etched on my mind.

Those of you who never got to NY for the play, never fear: Broadway replacement Estelle Parsons will be headlining the national tour starting this August. Plus, Hollywood is working on a film adaptation (though I still think the original production should have been filmed for PBS). For fans of Steppenwolf and Letts, there are reasons to celebrate as they are bringing his latest play Superior Donuts to NY this fall.

I have been blessed to have been there for August on its opening night at the Imperial on December 4, 2007, so it feel right that I’ll be there at the final performance. So as John Cullum and Kimberley Guerrero take their seats in Beverly’s den on June 28, I will experience the show for the seventh and last time in this incarnation, a beautiful and cathartic bookend.

A play like this comes along so rarely. Plus, there are some great discounts if you want to rush to see it before it goes! I hope to see you there…